That's the amusing--or, maybe, not-so-amusing--title of this online piece from the Vanity Fair Web site. How amusing--or not-so-amusing--it may be for you may ultimately depend not only on how you feel about Trump, but also how you feel about G-d: whether you believe in Him, Her, They, It, or Not At All. It's not my place to dictate or otherwise advocate for where you should be on the G-d issue. That's between you and the Almighty, and I'm perfectly content to leave it there. As for Trump, all I can say is that I sure as hell hope that you think he should go there. Hell, that is. Before Trump sends all of us there.
If you don't believe, then I think that you already have your answer to Vanity Fair's question. On the other hand, if you do believe--and polls suggest that the vast majority of you do just that--I'm going to try to suggest a way for looking at Trump's awful Presidency not as proof of G-d's absence, but in fact of the opposite--of G-d's presence of what may be a very critical time not only in our nation's history, but humanity's history as well.
Put simply, Donald Trump is a test. Not just for one party or the other, or even for members of small parties or no parties at all. He is designed to teach us how far we have fallen away from principles that used to guide and unite us, and that sometimes seem to exist in name only.
The Bible is replete with examples of G-d testing His followers, from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and throughout the Gospels in the New Testament. Some are obedient and reap the rewards of G-d's favor, while others are not and reap the price of that failure. Perhaps the thread that runs through all of these accounts is the idea that G-d is constantly trying to see if we are mindful of His presence and responsive to His voice.
If we think about divine testing in that sense, then what does Donald Trump's odious presence in the Oval Office teach us? How does it show our mindfulness and willingness to listen to G-d, and follow Him. Or, as I believe, our failure to do those things?
To answer those questions, it's useful to consider a few facts about Trump.
Donald Trump is a con artist masquerading as a businessperson. He was, as I believe I've said before, born on home plate with the idea that he invented baseball. Growing up in the lap of luxury with his father (who, for all of his own failings, was actually a self-made man), he gained a nine-figure trust fund upon reaching adulthood. Instead of using that money as a tool for learning how to be an actual businessman, he has squandered it on a series of publicly-funded vanity projects, most of which are unlikely to survive him, as the Bonwit Teller building and the Commodore Hotel, two New York landmarks he destroyed, survived their creators. Oh, and, in the process, he went into bankruptcy four times in the casino business, a business in which money practically prints itself for the half-witted. And lest I forget: he helped to destroy Atlantic City in the process.
Donald Trump cheats. On his wives. On his children. On his business partners and his associates. On the contractors who routinely have to sue him for payment on projects long after the work in question is clearly finished. And now, on the people who voted for him, by using Washington and the tax code to pay off his fellow 1%ters, at the expense of those who need public assistance and borrowers who need stable interest rates to finance their purchases. "Trump Digs Coal"? Maybe. The people who actually dig it? Hmmm ... not so much.
Donald Trump says what he says and does what he does first, last, and foremost, for the benefit of Donald Trump. As President, he is supposed to sublimate his own well-being for the benefit of the entire nation. As President, he has done exactly the opposite. He had taken advantage of his position to enrich himself and the businesses he still controls. He has, almost without question, accepted assistance from foreign interests without any public disclosure of what that assistance might cost the American people, now and in the future. He has spend large amounts of his schedule amusing himself by tweeting and golfing, at the expense of focusing on complex domestic and foreign issues that require his full attention and comprehension. And when he does find a few moments in his busy schedule to respond to reality's intrusion into his narcissism, it is always in a way calculated to promote his short-term popularity, even if that means contradicting a statement he made days or even hours earlier.
What does all of this mean?
I think Donald Trump is a judgment on all of us. He is, in a democracy, the president that we deserve. As a reflection, and as a punishment, on our own squandering of resources. On our own willingness to treat the truth as an occasional convenience. On our own willingness to seek out fulfillment by finding it only within ourselves, as opposed to finding it within each other. These qualities, in fact, may be the only thing about which we as a divided nation are bipartisan.
Indeed, these qualities may be the reason we are such a divided nation in the first place. We have, over the past several decades, forgotten about the qualities that made us a great nation. Hard work. Self-sacrifice. Helping others, even when doing is neither easy nor likely to lead to publicity. We have fallen--all of us--into the trap of thinking that each of us is all we need. From G-d's perspective, the truth is much different. He needs all of us--and, as a consequence, He needs us to realize that we all need each other.
Barack Obama had it right. We really are the change we seek. If we want to get rid of Donald Trump, and make sure that nothing likes him ever comes back, there's one simple answer: all of us need to become much less like him. Then, we'll have passed the test that all of us need to pass, for our sake and His.
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